


and they were neighbours (oh my god they were neighbours)

by lonelythimble



Category: Good Omens (TV), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Beekeeping, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Light Angst, M/M, Marijuana, Marriage Proposal, Men Crying, No Smut, Post-Canon, Sexuality Crisis, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Tags Contain Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26185153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelythimble/pseuds/lonelythimble
Summary: A few years have passed since the Apocalypse-that-wasn't and Mary's death, and Sherlock, John and Rosie have moved to a quiet countryside life farming bees, teaching biology and watching their daughter grow up. The quiet doesn't last long when Sherlock realises he's in love with John Watson, but not that his feelings aren't unrequited.Their friendly next-door neighbours Crowley and Aziraphale are farming 'herbs', being librarians and are similarly head-over-heels for one another, but what will it take for either of them to confess?A soft, warm and fuzzy little cottagecore fic for rainy days <3
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), John Watson & Original Character(s), Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson & Rosamund Mary "Rosie" Watson, Sherlock Holmes & Original Male Character(s), Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 11
Kudos: 68





	and they were neighbours (oh my god they were neighbours)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I'm completely new to this and have never published a fic before!!! Hope you enjoy, and this wasn't beta'd or proofread by anyone else so please let me know if there are any grammatical errors! Go easy on me, I don't know what I'm doing :))  
> I want to just say that this fic is based post-canon, so Sherlock & John will have already sort of completed previous character arcs and now move onto new ones. I might have softened their characters a little in this, as I do.   
> In this, the predominant storyline is Sherlock and John's. Crowley and Aziraphale's is more of a fluffy subplot of them being idiots, while Sherlock and John will overcome their own personal problems along the way. Don't get me wrong - it's a fairly even split in terms of the writing.

A mile from the chalky hills of the South Downs, two cottages lounge side by side under the countryside sun. There is a farm - a scatter of cows and worn down fences upon a rolling meadow - not far from here, and the road is dotted with family houses here and there. If you follow it, it will take you to a place from the past. To London. But for now, Crowley drives along it in his beloved Bentley with Aziraphale in tow. They are making their way to the charity shop to look for clothes from ages they remember, tinged with faded love: worn pages of books and interesting sunglasses that disguise the yellows of Crowley’s irises from their intriguingly attentive neighbours who farm bees.

Beside the most charmingly boring little brown cottage - Aziraphale and Crowley’s of course, since neither would settle for white or black - sits a quietly elegant, larger cottage with round windows and arches, which, in its strange own way, seems to complement the other’s pleasant conventionality with its own slight unorthodoxy. You could say the two seem to hum in harmony, but that’s actually the distant sound of a colony of bees as Sherlock does the rounds. A pot of honey is filled; John, who loves to drizzle the grainy sweetness on his morning toast, will be delighted, he thinks. But he is surprised to find that, when the man returns from his day job at the local secondary school, he says they should offer it to their new neighbours (as he would, the sentimental old sop) who’ve just recently moved in, and about whom they have yet to hear anything.

When the doorbell rings, Crowley jerks awake from where he’s fallen asleep beside Aziraphale on the couch. Of course, in his slumber, he accidentally let his head topple onto the angel’s shoulder, where it had been resting softly until he woke violently, clacking their skulls together painfully. He starts to grumble blearily, but is cut short by Aziraphale’s palm smoothing over the throbbing pain in his skull, wiping it away in a single motion that leaves Crowley’s scalp tingling. Shaking it off, he follows the angel to the door, replacing his sunglasses over his eyes.

The door swings open, and the smiling angel and his scowling demon are greeted by a doctor Watson smiling equally as brightly, and his detective scowling just as passionately.

“Oh, you must be our neighbours! Pleasure to meet you.” Aziraphale extends a hand, which John grips in a firm handshake.

“John Watson. The pleasure is all mine.” 

“Aziraphale, and this is Crowley.” Sherlock raises an eyebrow. “Oh, what a lovely couple you two make! Do introduce us.” Aziraphale beams at them.

“Oh- no, it’s… we aren’t together,” John starts, flustered. Aziraphale smiles knowingly, swallowing a choke at the suffocating love emanating from the two of them. “This is Sherlock,” he introduces, and then, when met by a solid silence, prompts “Sherlock?”

“Lovely to meet the two of you. How long have you been together?” the detective asks, a convincing charming smile plastered on his face that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. 

“Oh, we aren’t a couple either.” Aziraphale laughs stiffly. Sherlock frowns.

“Yes you are,” he says, which is met by a firm glance from John and a crease in the angel’s brow. 

“Whatever that means.” Crowley finally speaks, leaning against the doorframe. John is looking very meaningfully at Sherlock now, as though willing him to not say anything offensive with the power of his stare alone. Sherlock catches his eye and bites his tongue.

“A couple of delightful gentlemen,” he corrects, the same pseudo-smile shining. “We brought you some honey,” he finally adds, holding the jar of golden liquid out for a gleaming-eyed Aziraphale to grasp as lovingly as a newborn child. Crowley side-eyes him fondly, and, to the angel’s utmost surprise,  _ thanks  _ the two men for their gracious gift. Of course, he shuts the door virtually as soon as John finishes the breath with which he assures them that they are completely welcome to come over for tea anytime, and saunters into the living room, slithers up the wall, and finishes his nap on the ceiling. Aziraphale sighs after him, pausing when he hears incomprehensible whispered bickering coming from behind the door. Eventually there is a knock, and before opening the door, he checks to see whether Crowley’s form is visible from the doorway. But he doesn’t expect Sherlock and John to ask if they can come in when he opens the door. And he certainly doesn’t expect them to suddenly have a small child in tow. And, the angel that he is, he certainly isn’t going to turn them down when they’ve asked so politely! 

So, on the verge of panic, he ushers them as quickly as he can without being rude (because God forbid!) through the living room - where Crowley is lounging on the ceiling in plain sight - pointing to various odd ornaments from the demon’s old apartment in a desperate attempt to keep them looking anywhere but up. It seems like an hour has passed when the beating of his heart resides and the demon’s figure is hidden by the exposed Victorian wooden beams holding up the ceiling and the hefty head of the stove. He barely musters the breath with which to ask “and who is this lovely girl you’ve brought with you?” to the little girl with the messy blonde hair and the widest, most piercing blue eyes he’s ever seen. The power of her timid stare strips the angel of his skin. He smiles, doing his best to crouch down to her eye level (without toppling over or tearing his 300-year-old pants) and she smiles timidly. Leaning against Sherlock’s trouser leg, a small “Rosie,” escapes her lips. Aziraphale grins and holds out a hand for her to shake. She takes it impassively.

“Lovely to meet you, Rosie. I’m Aziraphale.” He straightens to John’s eye level, but Sherlock stands a foot taller than the both of them, a fond smile dancing on his lips.

“That’s a intesting name,” says Rosie.

“Interesting, not intesting, darling,” Sherlock corrects softly. 

“How old is she?” he asks.

“She’s three, starting nursery in a month,” John tells him. “We’re teaching her to read at home, though.”

“Already?” says Aziraphale, “That’s wonderful! I work at the library in town if she finds a liking for books. I’ve got my very own collection of vintage first editions upstairs, in fact. Mind you, it doesn’t exactly specialise in children’s books.” Sherlock lights up at this.

“Vintage - from which era, exactly?” he asks, pseudo-smile replaced with a scrutinizing tilt of the head.

“Oh, all of them!” Aziraphale chuckles, gesturing vaguely. “I’d be happy to introduce you anytime. It’s the most I can do after you’ve brought me such lovely honey.” He gazes lovingly at the jar in question.

They continue to exchange a few words over a cup of tea: as the kettle boils, Aziraphale tells them all about the homegrown herbs in the garden that Crowley’s been selling at the local supermarket and Sherlock deduces which mysterious herb he’s growing. As he pours it, John tells him about his new job teaching biology to the wild secondary students in the area, peppering in a few funny anecdotes about the nonsense his pupils get up to, and what a refreshing difference it’s been from the cold tension of the hospital. Sherlock, who is a stay-at-home father studying their growing daughter’s changing psychology, remarks that he definitely misses London more than John and tells him about how they met. John tells him how he knew half his life story at a glance, fascination and infatuation written all over his face, and Sherlock preens at the attention. If Aziraphale could, he would bottle up the love spilling forth between them and keep it for later.

When they eventually finish their tea and depart, Aziraphale closes the door, sighing like he’s just eaten a platter of sushi. Crowley snaps awake at the sound, despite dozing soundly throughout the previous half-hour of conversation. The angel wags a finger at him. “Do you know how much trouble we would have been in if they’d spotted you?” he says, in what is seemingly an attempt to be stern, but feels more like a lecture from a marshmallow. 

“Did they come in?” the demon says drearily.

“Yes! Right through the living room! And we talked in the kitchen for a long while!” he says angrily, and then breaks character with an unstoppable grin. “Oh, I can still feel the residual love. Couldn’t you feel it? I could hardly breathe, there was so  _ much _ of it.” Crowley inhales deeply and breaks into a bout of sputtering coughs. “Didn’t they say they weren’t a couple?” he says incredulously, choking after every word.

“Yes! It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? And that tall fellow is a detective! It’s a wonder they haven’t figured it out yet.” Crowley slivers down gracefully from the ceiling.

“Well, y’know, angel, we could speed that up. With a little meddling.” Aziraphale looks wounded. “I just don’t fancy-” he gags “not being able to breathe every time we see them.”

“What on earth are you suggesting?” he asks, shocked.

“Oh, nothing  _ wily _ ,” the demon drawls. “We could just…” he slowly pushes his palms together. “And ho-ly palmers kiss.” Aziraphale gives him his best stern look.

“As much as I love Shakespeare, no. It wouldn’t be genuine,” he says.

“Genuine, ingenuine… Is there really a difference?”

“Yes! It wouldn’t be as romantic,” he says with a pout. Crowley shakes his head at him fondly.

“Alright, angel. I’ll endure it,” he says with a doting little eye roll that the angel can’t see behind the sunglasses, but knows is there. 

“Oh really?” he says softly, smiling up at the demon. 

“My treat. Lunch?” he walks into the kitchen.

“I found a very interesting recipe for brioche, on the  _ internet _ ,” the angel starts, looking up at the demon expectantly.

“I knew you’d come around to it!” laughs Crowley. He hasn’t told the angel that he came up with the basic framework and founding ideas from which the internet sprang, but he suspects the demon had something to do with it.

“I have! But it gives me an awful headache, reading off a screen, so I printed it out.” He lays a screenshot of the webpage on the table and opens the fridge to miraculously find that all the ingredients have been stocked. He smiles knowingly at the demon and gets to work cooking.

“Not a couple!” Sherlock scoffs, once their front door is shut and Rosie is out of earshot. “It astounds me how positively  _ stupid  _ people can be! It’s pure ignorance! A single glance would prove their mutual infatuation. The idiocy, the  _ daftness _ -”

“What makes you so sure they’re a couple anyway?” asks John.

“John,” Sherlock says, rubbing his face exasperatedly. “They are two blatantly homosexual single men living together in the countryside, where real estate is cheap, they were  _ taking a nap together  _ before we came in, and they’re clearly both smitten for one another, not to mention polar opposites- they were even wearing opposite  _ colours _ .” He shudders.

“How romantic,” John deadpans.

“And the homunculus-Brobdingnagian, good-evil dynamic they had going on! It’s a classic romantic cliche, isn’t it? You know all about those. The sharp cold tall one has a soft spot for the little sweetheart,” he sneers.

“It sounds like you’re describing us,” John says with a laugh.

“Yes, except for the part where you’re a homosexually repressed army veteran and I don’t  _ do people _ .” He spits the last word, then adds “nor wear hideous sunglasses.” John smiles, then frowns.

“I’m not homosexually repressed, Sherlock, I’m not a homosexual.”

“No, you aren’t. But you aren’t straight, either,” he tells him idly, watching him with a challenge in his eyes.

“Am I?” John says with a smile that’s more of a snarl. It’s a face that says ‘I always hear  _ punch me in the face  _ when you’re speaking’.

“The evidence is apparent.” He gestures to John. “You’re so desperate to prove that you are straight - presumably a result of some form of indirect conditioning by your parents into believing that being gay is somehow wrong or weird - that you are defensive. And you would not be defensive if you weren’t hiding - repressing - some form of attraction to the same sex. Internalised homophobia. Though you have expressed that ‘it’s all fine’, you fail to hold yourself to the same standard.” John clenches and loosens his fists.

“Apologies,” adds Sherlock, softer. “I know you asked me to stop deducing you.”

“Yes, I did,” replies the man curtly, not quite meeting his eyes.

Rosie comes barging in, to the rescue of the awkward silence that was beginning to settle over the room. 

“Papa!” she screams excitedly. (Papa being Sherlock, and Daddy, John.) 

“Yes, my dear Watson?” he says, voice oozing with unadulterated adoration. He scoops her up onto his hip with a charmingly soft grin that melts John’s insides like butter on a pan. She jumps down and toddles to the glass door leading to the backyard, dragging Sherlock by the hand.

“Bird.” She points a pudgy finger at a blue tit preening its feathers on a dangling branch of the apple tree.

“What colour is it, Watson?” he says, with a pretend intensity like only she knows the answer that will unlock a fascinating mystery.

“Blue!” she babbles.

“What bird is it?” he says, after a gasp.

“Tell me tell me tell me!” she pleads, pulling on his sleeve.

“What’s the magic word?”

“Please! Pretty please, Papa?” He gives her curls a loving ruffle.

“It’s a blue tit.  _ Cyanistes Caeruleus _ .” She tries and fails to repeat the Latin name, and Sherlock’s face melts into a splitting grin, this time reaching his eyes. John, watching from the doorway, feels like he’s about to dissolve into a puddle on the floor at the sight: aquamarine, warm and glowing in the evening sunlight, meeting his gaze, making his heart wobble dangerously. Breathing is suddenly a challenging feat. The same soft light dusts a halo about his head, tangling in his curls. He has shedded his suit jacket for an untucked, uncharacteristically loose shirt, and his trousers have ridden up, showing off the length of his bony ankles. No longer polished to perfection. This is John’s Sherlock, raw and smiling and comfortable. Something lethal is bubbling in his chest; he doesn’t dare think what it could be.

John finds he’s been looking a second too long, and the moment passes, Sherlock’s smile fading into a brief look of curious confusion. John lets slip a shaky sigh and drags himself to the kitchen; clearly he needs some tea.

Sherlock calls out to John, letting him know that he’ll find him and Watson in her room. Of course, this does not prepare him for the sight he’s greeted with upon cracking the door open: the soft version of Sherlock, long limbs sprawled out on a bed that doesn’t fit him, with Rosie on his chest, tucked under his chin, fitting as perfectly as his violin. Her small hand is holding up a small plush toy bird, and Sherlock holds another just above, the two soaring across the bed side by side, having a conversation in funny hushed voices. John stands, fixated. This may be the most adorable thing he’s ever laid eyes upon, and this evening is doing more to his heart than it can handle. When she eventually drops the toy, he finally enters, sliding in on the other side with his arm around Sherlock’s shoulders, Rosie tucked in between them snugly. 

“Which book shall we read tonight, darling?” he asks, stroking her wild curls.

“A Busy Day for Birds, please!” She smiles, heartwarming and crooked.

John holds the left side of the book and Sherlock the right, reading out the rhymes in a soft baritone voice that almost puts John to sleep before Rosie. When the book comes to an end, her drowsy eyes open at the mention of the bird cuddling with its mother, and her content face morphs into a forlorn one. John strokes her hair again.

“It’s okay darling. I miss your mummy too,” John says gently. She curls into his side and he feels a warm wetness form against his chest as he rubs circles onto the small of her back. He exchanges a concerned expression with Sherlock over the top of her head.

Eventually, she falls back with a little sniffle, at which point Sherlock wraps an arm around her, sitting himself half on top of John’s chest, leaving him quite frozen.

“On the bright side, you get to have two dads. And that’s twice as much fun,” says Sherlock. He kisses her forehead affectionately. She smiles at this, wiping at her eyes sleepily.

“Can you tell me a story? A dective story? Please?” she says damply, but brightening.

“Detective, love,” Sherlock corrects. Something clenches in John’s chest at the endearment.

“Deketive?”

“Dit-teck-tiv,” John sounds out for her, his voice nearly cracking with Sherlock’s warmth pressed against him.

“Detective!” she says exuberantly. Sherlock beams.

“Once, me and your papa chased down a criminal who kept stealing childrens’ pet dogs. Then your papa found him by a tiny piece of mud he left on the carpet, and after that, we found him and chased him all over Westminster, up Ten Downing Street, and then Sherlock jumped into the Thames River after him!” John tells her. Her laugh is bubbly.

“What ‘bout the dogs?” she asks. The dogs were actually in an illegal underground meat trade, and several of them died brutal deaths, while the others had to go to the RSPCA for significant reconditioning, but she doesn’t need to know that. 

“We gave all of them back to their owners, and lots of families were very happy again,” Sherlock lies. Rosie gives a tired smile.

“C’we get a dog?” she says softly. Sherlock looks hopefully up at John. He sighs.

“Maybe. But it will chew on your soft toys and you will have to take it out for walks every day and pick up its smelly poop,” he teases. She wrinkles her nose, then smiles, eyes drooping closed. John kisses her forehead and turns off her bedside lamp, sliding gently out from underneath her. “Goodnight. Love you,” he says softly.

“Love you too,” her sleepy voice calls. Sherlock follows and closes the door quietly.

“Do I get a goodnight kiss too?” he jokes. John scoffs a laugh, blushing slightly, then retires to the bathroom, calling out a “night” behind him.

When Crowley returns to the kitchen, it no longer reeks of the sweet, overwhelming stench of love, but rather dough. Aziraphale is clad in only a translucent white (of course!) dress shirt rolled all the way up to his surprisingly hairy, thinks Crowley, elbows. He has on a pair of pajama bottoms in his -  _ their  _ \- signature tartan, with an apron tied around his curvy waist. He’s never seen the angel look so undone, so frazzled: his white hair sticks up in the heat of the room, and his tongue pokes out to nick a taste of his plump lips every few seconds. He’s so concentrated that he doesn’t notice the demon slouching in the doorway, watching him huff and twist uncharacteristically as he rolls and pounds the soft dough beneath his palms. Crowley is good at this - lurking, admiring from hidden alcoves, unseen. And Aziraphale is good at this nurturing, shaping gentility. In some ways, Crowley is a bit like the rich dough, his edges rounded and smoothed by his touch. In other ways, Crowley would give anything to be that dough. To be the recipient of the press of those palms; to be the cause of the faint sheen of sweat on his brow and the mussed look of his hair.

“Looking yummy,” he says, sauntering in. He isn’t referring to the dough. Aziraphale looks as flustered as ever.

“Let’s hope it tastes yummy,” he says, slightly out of breath. Crowley is sure he will. He pushes this thought aside, choosing instead to discuss the angel’s other internet findings. Then his favourite wines. Then the foods he misses most from all of history. Then the evolution of the film industry. Then a heated debate about the superiority of books over movies. Then a quality spot of banter about Warlock’s mental state.

The two immortal beings opt to stay awake all night chatting over a glass or seven of century-old wine. When the bread is finally out of the oven, they go watch the sunrise, happily tipsy and giddy on the damp morning grass, their faint chat interrupted by giggles and accompanied only by the dawn chorus. While they may be the only two immortal beings on Earth at the present, it feels like they might be the only people in the world out here. And Aziraphale thinks there’s nobody he’d rather be with.

Meanwhile, Sherlock has spent the night thinking about John’s blush.  _ Not like that _ .  _ Well, maybe a bit like that. _

It’s fascinating, adenylyl cyclase, he thinks. More fascinating yet is why he triggered it in John. Embarrassment, perhaps, at the mention of his sexuality? Shame? Or maybe attraction?

_ Foolish. Don’t let your emotions interfere with your investigations.  _ He pushes the thought away, but it continues to resurface. There’s no option but to explore this further.

The opportunity arises the next afternoon, while John is changing a lightbulb. He steps down from the chair with a huff. “Sherlock,” he calls across the room, to no avail. The man remains frozen behind his microscope, fixated on the lenses. “Sherlock!”

“I’m deducing you need help with something you can’t reach. Am I correct?”

“Yes, you bloody giant, come change this lightbulb for me.”

To John’s surprise, he slides out from behind the microscope and stands, straightening with the hint of a smirk playing across his lips. He slips the bulb out from John’s grasp (which is considerably tight with frustration) so gracefully he barely feels it. For a moment, it seems Sherlock has pickpocketed his lungs with as much ease. Then a large hand is placed on John’s head and Sherlock steps back down onto the floor, one leg and another lanky leg. He gives the shorter man’s hair a ruffle that is both condescending and affectionate, then brushes past him. John inhales a lungful of cologne that leaves his heart feeling as tousled as his hair, and the sleuth returns to his desk as though he’d never moved. He makes a discreet mental note of the way John’s pupils had dilated at his touch and files it away for later. When it refuses to stay filed away, he padlocks the safe.

It is only later that night (at 3:42 am, on John’s watch) that Sherlock is finished with whatever experiment he had been conducting under his microscope and makes his way into his bedroom, where, instead of sleeping, he paces frantically (and  _ very  _ loudly, much to John’s sleepless delight) back and forth across his room. The reason for his restlessness (and, subsequently, John’s) is the man in question. At first, Sherlock mistakenly released the observations obtained from the earlier incident with John’s hair from the drawer in his mind palace and deduced some highly concerning results from, which he then questioned (on foot, for half an hour) and tried and failed to emotionally detach himself from. The brief dilation of the pupils continued to snag on his mind. Signs of attraction. But Sherlock knew nothing about love other than every reason why it was a terrible idea. John would be very useful right now, thought Sherlock, if he wasn’t preoccupied with repulsion at the topic of his own homosexuality. He needs more data.

A knock at the door sounds, piercing the silence, accusatory.  _ I can hear you thinking about me, _ it says. It swings open, revealing a sunken-eyed John staring sternly up at him.

“Sorry. Was I being loud?”

“Yes.”

“I need my violin.” He runs a hand over his face.

“I need my sleep,” John retorts. Sherlock huffs a sigh. “So do you,” he adds.

“That’s never stopped it before,” he says, gesturing aggressively to his brain.

“What are you thinking so hard about, anyway? Is it your experiment?”

“Yes,” he says, but he’s not referring to the experiment John is thinking of.

“Did you try the breathing method?” When Sherlock’s sleeping problems had started affecting Rosie, they’d gone for a single session of family therapy. Sherlock had deduced the clerk and then the therapist, so they’d ‘decided’ to never return.

“Not tired.”

“Yes, you are, Sherlock.”

“Transport.”

“And if you get in a car crash, you die. At least try to sleep.” Sherlock rolls his eyes. “For me?” John adds. It’s a get out of jail free card he doesn’t use much, but it does the trick every time.

“Alright,” Sherlock snaps, without malice.

“Thank you.” The man grunts in response, flopping onto his bed with a dramatic swish of his dressing gown. John laughs through his nose, closes the door and pads away, collapsing onto his own bed in the same manner as when Rosie had finally fallen asleep as a baby.

_ John dried his hands on the towel hanging on the wardrobe door. They still smelt like baby wipes, which seemed to be one of those scents that managed to seep its way into your pores, so that no amount of washing could rid your skin of it. The whole room reeked of it. Sherlock, who was waltzing unevenly into the room, didn’t seem to mind as he flung himself limply onto the bed, landing in an ungraceful heap with his hair splayed about randomly. John idly wondered when the last time he’d slept was as he crawled under the covers beside him. The bed was a toasty relief amid the chill of winter. Rosie, across the room, was wrapped up in a thermal blanket. John, devoid of such a luxury, shifted closer to Sherlock’s bony back, where his spine visibly jutted out under the thin fabric of his nightshirt. Part of him, in his sleepy daze, wanted to reach out and smooth it away with his palm. The other made a mental reminder to feed him before slipping into sleep, his neck going limp, landing his head on the other man’s shoulder blade. _

Sherlock does not sleep: he schemes. A series of experiments on John that will support or disprove the hypothesis that John may be attracted to him. He notes the plan down on his laptop and attempts to sleep away the remaining few hours until morning. As soon as he lays his head down, the heavy drag of sleep takes him under.

Sleep’s efforts are short-lived, it would seem, when John wakes him four hours later. It’s already twelve pm, but the thick fog of sleeplessness humming at the back of his mind says otherwise.

Crowley had been experiencing a similar hum the day before; he had one hell of a hangover. Of course, being a demon, he could’ve sobered up with relative ease, but his hammered head had decided to instead fall asleep in the garden, where he’d woken, stiff and freezing, and slithered back inside. When Aziraphale had spotted the snake on the floor, he looked at him over the rims of his unnecessary half-moon spectacles and tutted patronisingly. If Crowley hadn’t been a snake, his face would’ve worn the nastiest scowl.

“Poor dear, you must be freezing. I would’ve brought you in, but you’re much too heavy, and I didn’t want to get my coat wet,” he says, purposefully omitting the part where he’d miracled a warm patch for the wily demon and worried profusely that he was going to catch a cold, this worry conflicting with his inability to wake the man when he looked so peaceful tangled in the grass. Benighted grass.

He pats his shoulder invitingly. “Come, you must be freezing.”  _ This is not allowed!  _ An alarm blares at the back of his mind. It’s silenced by the winding of a serpentine chill about his shoulders. Goosebumps prickle to life. He tells himself it’s just the cold, knowing full well he is not in the slightest bit cold. He is on fire, rather. Hellfire, smouldering holily.  _ This is not allowed!  _ They do not touch. It is an unspoken rule, always has been. And yet, here is Crowley, his scales slotting into the curve of the angel’s shoulders. To think that there is only a layer of cloth separating them. Aziraphale finds that by some miracle, there appears to be less air in the room than there was a moment ago. He also finds that he hasn’t taken in a word of the last four pages and flips back with a huff.

Crowley is sleeping now, his breath a hiss and a puff of warm air tickling Aziraphale’s earlobe. In his unconscious state, he curls tighter around the angel’s neck, an onyx scarf, sinking into the soft fabric of his coat. Lulled by the rhythmic rise and fall of his body, Aziraphale joins him in sleep.

When he wakes, the sun winks through the dangling vines of Crowley’s herb garden. His head is just gently leaning on the coil of serpent at the base of his skull. He feels more rested than he has in millennia, and the kink in his neck that’s been haunting him for the past three centuries is gone for once.

“Goodness, what time is it?” says Aziraphale with a yawn. His angel hair sticks up at the back in wispy spikes. It’s the first thing Crowley sees as he wakes, and he thinks sleepily,  _ there is no better way to wake up _ . (Of course, a moment later, he berates himself for the sappiness of the thought. He’s growing soft in his retirement.) 

The man sits up straight, peeling away his spine from where it’s become adhered to the couch. Subsequently, Crowley tumbles down from his perch on his shoulders and lands in an unfortunate, haphazard heap of snake in his lap. He begins to writhe helplessly, tangled up in himself, and then resignedly transforms back into an even more unfortunate heap of human in his lap. 

“Morning, angel,” he says, sprawled out across the blushing angel’s thighs, his arms crossed behind his head nonchalantly. (Internally, he’s screaming, but you wouldn't know it; if Crowley is good at one thing, it’s deception.) 

He slowly pries himself off, swinging his legs over onto the floor and hurling himself to his feet, leaving a flustered Aziraphale sitting, looking terribly lost. He shakes himself back to his senses and stands up, patting his legs.

“We should go out,” he announces, once his face is no longer flushed. Crowley grunts his agreement.

“Where?” he asks. Aziraphale gives a questioning hum.

“Oh! Let’s give the love-birds a visit!” Crowley groans.

“ _Why_? And please don’t call them that.”

“Because we’re neighbours! It’s expected of us to come around every now and again,” he explains, Crowley playing along like he isn’t already familiar with humans’ societal expectations.

“Well, we ought to… mmh. Bring something along?”

“Oh yes, you’re quite right,” says the angel thoughtfully. “Ooh, I still have some leftover brioche.” He momentarily pauses, as though he’s weighing up visiting the neighbours against giving up his brioche, then walks determinedly to the fridge, shaking off the bout of gluttony. Crowley eyes him knowingly, a little smile pulling up one cheek. He lurks in the doorway watching Aziraphale prepare the pastry on a china tray from 1815 - an early Spode with beautifully handcrafted blue underglaze. Handling it with the utmost care, the angel carries it to the neighbouring house with Crowley in tow.

Sherlock doesn’t come downstairs until half an hour after John wakes him. When he does, John almost burns the eggs at how wonderfully undone he looks.

Here, now, in his loose white shirt, untucked, and his too-short pajama bottoms, he looks angelic. Looks, however, can often be deceiving, because all through breakfast Sherlock is unrelenting in his silence, save for the occasional responding grunt.

When the doorbell rings, he buries his head in his hands and groans.

“I’ll get it; you stay put,” says John. For some reason, likely his persistent fatigue, this infuriates Sherlock. 

“No.” He pushes ahead of John and runs to answer the door, leaving his head throbbing. 

He flings the door open and is greeted with a sight that makes his skin crawl: Aziraphale grinning, whiter than the sun, and Crowley decidedly not smiling, a black hole beside him. It’s such a sickening romantic cliche that Sherlock has the audacity to audibly snarl. He looks over them again, eyes snagging on the vintage pottery.

“Spode,” he spits, slamming the door. He angrily breezes past an astounded John, who frowns after him, agape.

“What the hell was that?” he says, after reopening the door and apologising earnestly, politely declining the brioche in defense that he can’t accept it after Sherlock’s insolence. 

“They were being annoying,” he answers when John whirls back around.

“And you’re so much better than them,” he says sarcastically.

“Am I not?”

“You’re all tall with your cheekbones and your coat and your snide remarks like Crowley, swaggering around with his sunglasses on.”

“And that would make you plump, soft,  _ sweet  _ Aziraphale, I take it?” he sneers.

“At least we’re both  _ polite _ , Sherlock - that means saying hello, not  _ slamming the door _ , in case you’ve deleted basic etiquette.”

He pauses a moment. “You said you  _ weren’t  _ homosexually repressed, did you not?”

“No, Sherlock, I said  _ I’m not gay! _ ”

“Then why are you allowing yourself to be compared to a  _ blatantly  _ gay man?”

“He’s not- _ how can you possibly know he’s gay _ ?” exclaims John

“John.”

“Yeah, alright, he’s gay. That doesn’t mean I am! I was just trying to tell your  _ massive ego  _ that you aren’t better than every other person alive.”

There is a pause.

“Were you implying that we’re a couple?”

“What?”

“Well you compared us to them, and they are, in most senses, a couple.”

“They’re not a couple, Sherlock. Neither are we.”

“Aren’t they?”

"No."

"Aren't we?"

“Are you serious?” 

“You must admit we do get mistaken for a couple plenty. And we’re also living together unnecessarily in rural England, plus raising a child together. We are, in essence, a married couple.” They may sleep in separate beds in companionable silence, but John vividly remembers the nights where he would collapse, exhausted, on Sherlock’s bed with Rosie finally asleep in her cot. He can’t seem to forget the way they clung to each other’s warmth in the winter, and how some mornings they would wake up tangled together worse than Sherlock’s wild curls (which Rosie, despite her lack of blood relation, had miraculously - unfortunately, for John, who has to untangle it - managed to inherit). 

“We’re not shagging.” John argues, an almost hysterically disbelieving smile leaving his mouth agape.

“You can be in a relationship without ‘shagging’,” he says, cringing. “How do you think asexuals do it?”

“Sherlock, we don’t even kiss.”

“We could,” he says, his baritone voice dipping deeper. John blushes scarlet.

“Alright, stop it now,” he says, rubbing his face.

“What? You wouldn’t kiss me?” teases Sherlock, documenting every microreaction on John’s face.

“Wh-what? Why would you even ask that?” he sputters.

“Why not?” he asks nonchalantly, leaning to one side.

“Are you trying to ask me to be in a relationship with you or something?” he asks, bewildered, his face burning.

“No, I’m telling you we’re already in one,” he says, frowning.

“Sherlock, Sherlock,” John has a hand out, gesturing for him to stop, his eyes clenched shut. “We do not kiss, we do not shag, we are not together.” He looks sternly up at him, but the effect is undermined by the rosy blush of his cheeks.

“That’s not the only thing that constitutes a relationship,” Sherlock says, then pauses, glancing to the side. “Well, maybe in your case, it is.”

John scoffs. “And how is it you know so much about relationships, then?” John says, his voice full of vitriol. Sherlock glowers.   
“Does the notion that I have been previously romantically involved surprise you?” 

“Yes! You said sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side.” He frowns, shaking his head, still smiling.

“I could have learned that for myself, for all you know,” he says, shooting a quick look at John. He snickers. 

“For all I know, you’ve been single forever,” he says, only realising how awful it sounds when Sherlock’s face seals off every last hint of emotion, retreating like a clam. “God, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I just think, if you think  _ we’re  _ a couple, you don’t know what a couple is. The same way you didn’t know about the solar system.”

“Well then. Forgive me, if I’m being daft,” he says sarcastically.

“Say that again so I can get it on record,” retorts John, under his breath. “The day Sherlock Holmes realised he was a twat.”

Then Sherlock’s frown clouds over as though he’s suddenly solved a cold case. “Or maybe I  _ am  _ being daft,” he says thoughtfully.

“Yes, you just-” Sherlock brushes past him frantically, leaving John standing dazedly behind him. “Said that…” he trails off, watching after him.

“What about lunch?” he yells. Sherlock slams another door in response. Letting out a long sigh, John returns to the kitchen, where Rosie is perched on her high chair, blissfully unaware, her large eyes fixed on some undefined point in the distance. Of course, John doesn’t get more than a moment’s silence to mull over the conversation’s contents before Rosie launches into a detailed report of her imagination’s newest works, her little cheeks beaming with a childlike wonder that’s so adorable it gives John the patience to listen, fully, politely asking Rosie to chew with her mouth shut in between.

Sherlock is always better at this kind of thing, he thinks, surprisingly. Giving her all the attention she needs. He seems genuinely fascinated when she tells him things. John wonders distantly if he’s making up for his own losses. 

When lunch is over, John wipes away the food that has unfortunately missed her mouth (which happens to be a significant proportion of it) and then huffs upstairs and leaves a cold bowl of pasta on the desk of Sherlock’s study. He doesn’t acknowledge him, but at least it’s setting a good example of mealtimes for Rosie. The girl in question is playing building blocks, unaware, and John returns downstairs, joining her.

Meanwhile, Sherlock begins to document the ways in which he and John are an archetypal couple: the fact that they still live together despite not working together anymore, that they are raising a child who calls them ‘daddy’ and ‘papa’, that they each hold one of her little hands when they go on walks, that John calls him  _ fantastic  _ and  _ incredible  _ and  _ amazing  _ and  _ extraordinary  _ and not  _ freak _ , that John stopped limping when they met, that John had failed to stay in a relationship lasting longer than 2 weeks after that, that John had only settled into a long term relationship once he believed Sherlock to be dead, that John had grieved for him, that John had said ‘you’re my best friend’ and didn’t that imply a sort of love? It was beginning to seem like John could be attracted to him, but love him? Could the genius truly be stupid enough to miss that? No. Impossible. John was straight. (And Sherlock was unloveable.) Besides, John’s relationships were unsuccessful because Sherlock was mentally burdensome and only got in the way, even managing to kill his wife and Rosie’s mother, further emphasizing the former. To believe that  _ John _ of all people, if anyone at all, was capable of loving him was purely stupid, and nothing but a distracting fantasy to entertain the notion that he could exist in any other state than the norm: alone.

Almost as if on cue, John arrives in the doorway. “Dinner is ready,” he says. Sherlock is relieved to find himself forgiven; if John’s wrath is frightening, his silence is worse. “What’re you working on?” he leans against the oak paneling of the doorframe. Sherlock takes in the bulky shoulders and the fond little smile and the folded arms and accidentally analyses the way it makes all his thoughts slow down for a moment.

“Nothing.” Sherlock slams the laptop lid shut and waltzes up to the doorframe which John’s bulky figure is blocking. The smaller man's eyebrows furrow. “What are you hiding?” he says, his tone almost careful. 

“Oh, nothing to concern yourself over. Wouldn’t want to take up any more of the limited brain power you possess.” It’s a low blow; defensive. But it’s concerning because another question has just occurred to him: does he love John?

“Then there must be no issue with you showing it to me,” John says, his frown deepening. He seems serious. Sherlock hates that frown; the way it makes the tiredness of his eyes - still prominent, the nightmares, even all these years after the war and the fall and Mary - stand out in a way that makes Sherlock’s stomach curdle. This raises yet another question. What does love feel like? Like this? John would know.

(One thing to know about Sherlock Holmes is that he hates admitting that he does not know everything there is to know. To ask for knowledge is to admit that you are not in possession of it. Subsequently, he hates asking for knowledge that he does not possess. John, however, knows that Sherlock is quite clueless and thinks no less of him for it. Subsequently, Sherlock does not hate asking John.)

‘John,” he starts hesitantly. The man’s gaze softens encouragingly, his eyebrows still drawn together, only more concerned than angry this time. He struggles to make the words form on his tongue. “What does love feel like?” he slowly sounds out, as though each syllable is being tasted anew. John looks like he’s been cornered. A series of expressions cross his face momentarily before he lands on an almost wounded look, eyebrows pinched together.

“You’ve never been in love?” he says, so softly he almost doesn’t hear it, in a voice so careful it barely even disturbs the air. It’s like Rosie’s finally sleeping in her cot again and they’re exchanging sleepy murmurs over the pillows like they used to.

_ Sherlock was gently cradling Rosie to his chest, softly singing her a lullaby in a baritone voice as he swayed from side to side. Her eyelids began to slowly droop shut, and once she was soundly sleeping, he lowered her carefully into her cot, releasing a long sigh. His eyes were sullen and drowsy as he turned to face John, who had already climbed into bed. He rolled in quietly beside him, landing in a sprawl of lanky limbs, his shoulder pressed up against John’s.  _

_ John awoke 2 hours later with his nose buried in Sherlock’s curls to the sound of Rosie wailing.  _

_ “Good morning, my dear Watson,” Sherlock said as he untangled himself to tend to the child. _

_ “Morning,” John said sleepily in response, earning a chuckle. “What?” he asked groggily.  _

_ “I meant this Watson, not you,” he said, scooping the baby into his arms and leaving the room to change her nappy. _

_ When he returned to the bed, John watched him through the hazy sheen of sleep as he climbed under the covers and rolled over to face him.  _

_ “Don’t worry. You’re still my favourite Watson.” He combed John’s hair out from before his eyes with his long fingers. John smiled momentarily, then his face went slack with sleep. Sherlock tucked the way the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth softened into the John closet in his mind palace and closed his eyes, but didn’t sleep until a long time after. _

“Of course not. But this is important data.”

“Oh. Well. I suppose love is a very ambiguous, subjective thing. Psychologically it has the same effect as, well, heroin.” He gives a nervous laugh and scratches his head.

“Dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin. I’m familiar with it. But what does the emotion itself entail?”

“Oh. Erm, you obviously feel very happy around the person in question. Sometimes it’s overwhelmingly joyful, other times it can be stressful - people describe it as having butterflies in your stomach when you’re nervous. About confessing, or even just… being around them. Everything they say and do is somehow a million times better than when everyone else does it.” He shoots him a bittersweet smile. “Sometimes they’re all you can think about. You can still resent them, but at the end of the day, you’d still turn yourself inside out for them. Even when it hurts. And it hurts a lot.” 

John notices that Sherlock is looking very alarmed. “You alright?” he asks. Sherlock snaps upright and his face clears immediately.

“Yes. Perfectly. Sorry, I was just adding a post to The Science of Deduction about how sentiment is a defect and love is a disadvantage.” He straightens his dressing gown.

“Oh. Right.” Disappointment, deduces Sherlock. For some reason, John is disappointed in him.

“May I pass?” he adds, after a moment.

“Right. Yeah.” John steps out of the way and moves into the kitchen, where a meal of mashed potatoes, boiled peas, carrots and corn, and a thigh of roast chicken (cut into little cubes for Rosie) is served. Sherlock, being uptight thanks to a spoiled childhood of impeccable spices, represses the urge to turn up his nose, and opts for a small smile of gratitude at John, who returns it after a second. The dinner is, he thinks, satisfactory. He tells John it was scrumptious and earns the desired beam of pride. Then the previous night’s scheming comes back to him, and he gives his knife a suggestive lick, exposing the long column of his neck. John looks disconcerted, confused, but most importantly curious.

“That good, huh?” he says almost suspiciously. He picks up Sherlock’s plate - picked clean, for a surprising change - and washes it under the sink, unconsciously meaningfully eyeing the knife. Sherlock notes his responses and files them away for later analysis. 

He opts to remain downstairs now that the bad mood has blown over and there is no spode to provoke him further. Rosie, who missed his stimulating participation all morning, is more than happy to have him back, grinning as he flops down beside the precariously balanced tower of blocks she’s stacked.

“Now, tell me, Watson, what inspired your latest, greatest piece of architectural magnificence?” he asks, the interest in his voice completely genuine.

“I wanted it to be tall like Papa,” she tells him, beaming. His face folds into a wobbling portrait of soul-crushing appreciation. Before he can let himself well up at the magnitude of adoration he holds for this tiny human, he stacks two jenga blocks on their sides and gestures to them.

“This was inspired by you, because you’re very small,” he tells her, and she shrieks in indignation.

“I’m not small!” she yells, knocking down his blocks. He closes his eyes, hand hovering over her tower in threat. “No, no, please don’t!” she blabbers. “I’m sorry I yelled!” she yells. He raises his eyebrows as his fingers brush over the wood. “And- and I’m sorry I knocked over your tower!” He moves his hand away. 

“In real life, conflict and destruction are met with retaliation, my dear Watson. You do not understand that yet, do you?” he asks her while she arranges another tower, so enraptured she doesn’t even hear him. What she does hear, though, is the loud clatter of all of the bricks in her tall tower tumbling to the floor and scattering as she knocks it over with her foot. Her face crumbles abruptly and she huffs out a few stuttering sniffles as she begins to cry. Sherlock’s long form crawls around her on the floor and brings an arm to curl around her shoulder comfortingly. 

“Now, Watson,” he says softly, after giving her a moment to mourn her tower. “What did we learn from this?”

“Be ca’ful,” she murmurs.

“True,” he says soothingly, “but your tower was unsteady, too, wasn’t it?” he says. Her face unclouds slowly, bright eyes blooming into understanding. Forgetting the bout of tears, she scrambles across the floor and rebuilds the tower with proper reinforcement, rather than vertically stacking jenga blocks. She beams up at Sherlock, the tower standing as tall as her head, which he gives a loving ruffle.

“Extraordinary,” he says, asking her to repeat the word while he peers into her mouth, observing the development of her verbal capability. He will add every detail and deduction to his massive Rosie document shortly, once he’s measured her imagination and storytelling abilities, and then her arithmetic and logical skill and her emotional intelligence. He does these check-ins every two weeks, varying and disguising them accordingly so that she never even registers that an observation is taking place. For now, he gets her soft-toys out for some narrative construction.

Speaking of soft things, Aziraphale was unfazed by Sherlock’s door-slam. If anything, he seems relieved to have kept his brioche, which he delicately replaces in the fridge.

“Shall we try somewhere else, then?”

“Hmm,” grunts Crowley noncommittally. He wills Aziraphale to suggest a picnic; it’s been too long since he last saw him laid out on a blanket in nourished glory.

“How about a picnic?” Fireworks. “We could go up to the lake?”

“How about the farm? Been too long since I last terrorised the cows.” Aziraphale pouts at him but agrees.

The farm turns out to be a wonderful idea. He watches the hills unfurl through the window of the Bentley, and the sun rolls off its sleek back as he closes the door in a gesture that is more of a caress. The blue sky beams down over unfolding parchment and emerging cheeses and bread tearing in chubby palms. The afternoon is a zephyr of fingers in mouths and tongues on lips. Benighted food, thinks Crowley, hungrily watching him eat.

When the food is finished, they take a stroll through the overgrown grass and come to an elevated ledge looking out over the toy houses, bottlecap cars weaving slowly along duct tape roads lined with thumbtack pedestrians. The school is visible in the distance, looking oddly lifeless without the weekly bustle. A bumblebee picks at a flower by Crowley’s shoe. He watches it bump and fumble, smiling softly. 

“I designed the bumblebee, did you know?” says Aziraphale, watching him. 

“You are a bumblebee,” he says, tilting his head back to look at the clouds.

“Oh, really? Why?” He clasps his hands together nervously.

“Oh, y’know-” he gestures to and fro loosely. “You’re all plump and going around helping all the little flowers grow,” he says fondly.

“Plump?” He looks hurt.

“Angel, I like the gut. I’m not Gabriel.”

“Oh. Right, then,” he says, fidgeting.

“Good job you did,” says Crowley, pouting over his chin at the bee on his finger. 

“Really? Thank you.” A smile splits his face. Crowley shoots him a sideways, toothless smile, his head tilted down fondly.

It is at this point that the bee promptly shoots up the demon’s right nostril and he gives a violent, panicked snort followed by a wrathful yowl, and, arms flailing, loses balance and pitches over, landing in a bony heap in the grass. Aziraphale, bless him, attempts to hold back a laugh, but when Crowley sits up with his sunglasses dangling halfway off his hooked nose, he can’t contain himself and bursts into a hysterical fit of giggles. The demon glares at him for a good minute, his stung nose growing redder by the seconds. His frown is wiped away in an instant, though, as the angel (through tears of joy) tentatively reaches forward to hold his nose still and remove the stinger with his other hand. It’s an oddly intimate position, he thinks, Aziraphale’s plump fingers warm and steady around his nose, skin whispering on skin like you might cup a jaw or trace a cheekbone.  _ He’s never touched my face before _ , he thinks.  _ Forehead brushes from time to time, sure, and the occasional light cheek kiss when they were in fashion (thanks to my own meddling in human customs,) but never face. _ But here they are, Aziraphale leaning in close enough to feel his breath (Satan, it probably smells like cheese) with a hand hovering softly on his face, eyes fixed on his nostril as if it were his lips, and if he was to lean forward a little into his hand, his palm would be splayed over his face and their wine-stained lips would meet in the middle.

Aziraphale plucks the stinger out of his nose and he howls in pain again, ducking away, clutching his nose. He grumbles something incomprehensible about bumblebees, then stands up and saunters sulkily back down the hill with the angel trailing behind him. (Of course, he stops to scoop up the bee’s dying body and heal it, because he’s a bumblebee, going around helping all the little flowers grow.)

Crowley is soundless following his humiliation and doesn’t make a noise until they’ve returned home and he’s strutted into the garden for some therapeutic yelling at herbs. Only, the noise that leaves his mouth is not a yell of what he might call ‘tough love’, but rather a petrified yelp; he’s just spotted a bee on Aziraphale’s rosebush.

“What is it, dear?” says Aziraphale, his voice wavering with his steps as he wobbles into the garden to Crowley’s protection. “Oh,” he says breathlessly, spotting the bee. He returns momentarily inside, much to the demon’s distress, and reemerges with a mason jar in which he proceeds to trap the bee, and, with a pat on the shoulder which is both patronising and comforting, he takes the jar outside and across to Sherlock and John’s house. 

To his surprise, Sherlock answers the door. (He’d been waiting by the door ever since lunch, thinking over John’s disappointment and hoping that one way to restore his faith would be to apologise to their neighbours for slamming the door, and in doing so prove that he was human.)

“Ah, Aziraphale. Do come in; I’ve been meaning to speak to you,” he says, ushering him inside and closing the door. He leads him into the kitchen because it’s the most recently renovated and the stools are perfect for visitors, but more importantly because it is the best spot in the house for sound to echo upstairs, where John will hopefully overhear. 

“I wanted… to apologise,” he says, as earnestly as he can muster, “for my earlier behaviour. It was dreadfully rude of me.” He internally curses himself for sounding like Mycroft.

“Oh, that’s perfectly alright, my dear. I’d already forgotten!” Aziraphale says, cheerfully enough for Sherlock to almost break his well-practiced kind smile with a scowl. “Actually, I came around to bring you something else, from our garden. I think you’ll like it very much.” Sherlock isn’t sure whether he is being purposely obtuse in his assumption that Sherlock would not arrest him for the supposed  _ herbs  _ on offer, given his work with the police, because he knows Aziraphale to be of decent intelligence, or if what he’s brought could be something other than a  _ herb _ . It’s the first intriguing puzzle he’s seen since John’s disappointment, but before he can deduce the gift it’s buzzing before his eyes, clinking against the glass walls of the jar. His eyes light up.

“Thank you,” he says, the earnestness in his voice sincere this time. “He’s beautiful.”

The male worker honeybee - male by the large size and eyes and the segmented portion of the antennae - is poised delicately on his thin legs, wings folded on its back, crossed, intricate weavings of iridescent chitin. He wonders how it could’ve broken free. 

“I best be getting back to Crowley - he’s quite frightened of bees, now, I think.” A smile crosses his face. “Thank you for your apology,” he says, and Sherlock sees him out. 

“That was nice of you,” says John while his back is turned. He doesn’t sound accusatory, but Sherlock still feels a little cornered, as though he’s been caught doing something wrong.

“He gave me a bee,” he says, as a means of explaining himself.

“You apologised before that,” he says knowingly.

“Listening, were you?” John smiles, jutting out his chin at him. “Maybe I’m growing soft in my retirement,” adds Sherlock, taking the jar outside, where the sun is beginning to settle over the horizon.

_ Rosie yawned widely, evening sun spilling over her as she stretched her pudgy arms and legs intermittently. An exhausted John scooped her gently up and she burrowed her head sleepily into his chest as he silently crossed the room. As she fell into a slumber, John lowered her carefully down into her cot, padding out of the room silently and closing the door. _

_ He retreated downstairs, finding Sherlock sprawled messily out on the grass in the garden. His eyes slid open with the glass door as John came out to join him, standing beside his body. _

_ “Wanna farm bees,” he slurred. “Once Watson’s old enough.” _

_ “Mmkay. Only if you don’t die of hypothermia,” sighed John. _

_ “Don’t think I can die. Think’m already dead.” _

_ “You’ve been dead before. Survived it that time, m’sure you can do it again,” said John, swaying on his feet with exhaustion. With a sigh, the crumpled form on the floor peeled itself upright, and Sherlock held out a hand. John took it, hurling him unexpectedly to his feet. He swayed forwards, bumping against John, and then stayed there, eyes drooping shut. John unconsciously leaned into his neck, and Sherlock leaned back, an armless, fatigued sort of pseudo-hug. But Sherlock was warm and large and snug, and so was John, so they rested in each others’ comfort for a minute before heading inside and folding into each other silently on John’s bed, tumbling quickly into unconsciousness. _

“Growing soft,” scoffs John under his breath. “You were always soft.” Sherlock glares at him through the door, then steps back inside and strides over to John in a few long steps. He pokes him meaningfully in the gut.

“I’m not the only one growing soft,” he tells him, cocking an eyebrow. John snickers.

“Touche,” he says with a smirk.

When he rolls into bed that evening, he can still feel precisely where Sherlock’s finger pressed into his flesh. He finds himself suddenly growing insecure about his stomach.  _ Soft _ , he’d called it, and didn’t Sherlock hate  _ soft _ ,  _ sentimental _ ? He reassures himself that it was just a joke, but now his mind is orbiting their earlier conversation. Why did Sherlock seem so adamant that they were a couple? Were they a couple? Did John want them to be? Did Sherlock? And what did he have on his laptop? He wasn’t one to hide things. Something embarrassing, perhaps? Something terribly human, surely. Pornography? No, he can’t even picture that. A surprise? Never. Well, not never, but there was no reason for one. Maybe he was talking to the woman again.

In short, it was an insufferably long night. That being for both of them, since Sherlock was analysing his results of the failed knife experiment.

John wakes groggily the next morning to the dreary meandering tune of his alarm. His mouth feels disgusting, and his eyes are glued together with fatigue. He tries to move, to get up, but it feels like his bones are made of lead. His body sags back into bed and he slips in and out of restless unconsciousness, struggling helplessly against the fretful tide of sleep washing him under.

It takes a worryingly long time for him to finally wake up, and by the time he’s dressed and downstairs, he’s already running late.

“Alright, I’m off to work,” says John to Sherlock and Rosie, perched on his hip, more belonging than a fifth limb. He breezes through the kitchen, haphazardly tying his tie. He puts a piece of toast in his mouth and slings on his coat and satchel. Returning to the kitchen, he removes the toast to down a long sip of coffee in preparation for the wrath of public school kids. He replaces the toast and slings on a scarf, coming towards the two of them. Swallowing a bite, he quickly pecks a kiss onto Rosie’s cheek, and, before he can think, does the same for Sherlock, replacing the toast just as fast. It’s not until he turns around to open the door that it registers: he just kissed Sherlock on the cheek. He hopes the sleuth doesn’t notice the pinkness of his ears as he unlocks the door, struggling to fit the key in the hole like he’s drunk. (He does notice. He also notices the precise texture of John’s lips in immense detail and the faint scent of coffee and bread and the Maillard reaction and laundry powder.) For a minute, he is frozen still, until Rosie exclaims “Daddy kissed you too!”

John undergoes a similar momentary crisis, his thoughts a jumble of  _ shit shit shit shit shit  _ and  _ I just kissed Sherlock Holmes  _ and  _ fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck _ . He’s so distracted that he doesn’t notice Aziraphale trotting merrily down the path and they collide head-on, leaving John even more flushed, apologies laced with profanity streaming out his mouth (yes, the same mouth which just kissed Sherlock Holmes’ cheek!).

“Excuse you!” a scandalised Aziraphale says at his cursing.

“Sorry,” he says breathlessly, “I’m running very late.” He dodges past him and speedwalks off.  _ Distraction _ , he thinks.  _ I need a distraction from whatever this is. _

Dating, he decides, will do well to take his mind off Sherlock Holmes. It never has in the past, but there’s nothing like a firm ass and a plump bosom to steer him away from a notion of… an unsavoury thing that will not be named, because naming it makes it real.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, watches him suspiciously. He’s leaving a trail of all-consuming love behind so noxious it even chokes the angel, who has more or less developed a tolerance to it in his many centuries.  _ What could have possibly brought that on _ , he wonders?

It won’t do. He’ll just have to ask Sherlock, he thinks, ringing the doorbell. It opens almost immediately, as though Sherlock was already standing in the entree waiting for him. (He was actually watching John leave like some forlorn wife, but he’ll tell you he was observing his responsive mannerisms.)

“What just happened with you and John?” he asks excitedly.

“How is it you’ve assumed anything happened?”

“Oh, we all know only you can get him so flustered. What’s that lovely American catchphrase? Ooh,  _ spill the tea! _ ” he grins widely. Sherlock scowls down his nose.

“I don’t see how that knowledge is any of your business,” he says, quirking an eyebrow.

“Oh, lighten up! We’re neighbours,” he scoffs, as if this is a very obvious fact that Sherlock has yet to notice. The sleuth simply looks witheringly at him for several seconds.

“Alright, let’s make a deal: if I tell you what happened, you have to explain to me everything you know about love and romance,” he finally declares.

“I’m very well versed on the topic, my dear boy! Come with me to the library and I’ll enlighten you. But first, your end of the deal?”

“If you must know, he accidentally kissed me on the cheek.” His voice is unwavering and his face is stoic, but he fails to mask a crease in his brow. He might as well be staring dramatically onward with a hand lingering over his cheek, thinks Aziraphale, giggling, earning another disdainful glare.

“If I know one thing about love, it’s that John’s head over heels for you, dear,” he says, nudging the taller man fondly with his elbow. “Come along, now,” he says, even though Sherlock’s already following him, Rosie in tow. 

As they walk along the tree-lined streets of the suburbs, the early sunlight playing across their figures, Aziraphale transfers his extensive knowledge of depictions of romance in literature. By the time they arrive at the boulevard at the heart of the town, Rosie’s moved up onto Sherlock’s hip, and he’s moved onto theatre, his monologue growing passionate and riddled with hand gestures that morph in the reflection of the occasional little car passing by. It isn’t until he’s exhausted the topic of film and unlocked the door to the library that Sherlock finally interjects.

“And how about you and Crowley?” he asks. Aziraphale freezes.

“I’m not quite sure what you mean,” he says, breathlessly anxious.

“Yes you are,” huffs Sherlock impatiently. When the angel pointedly does not meet his eyes, he exasperatedly adds “It’s quite clear you two are in love.”

“Don’t be silly,” says Aziraphale through a laugh, his eyebrows pinched together.

“Ah, I see. You believe that your affections are merely one-sided.”

“Well, you see, they are. Crowley does not love people as I do.” Sherlock gives a little chuckle at that.

“And I’m sure you must think the same of me?”

“You? No, my dear boy. I think you love exceptionally more than any of us and hide it to keep it safe.” Sherlock looks calculatingly at him at that, his eyes darting to Rosie who is distractedly fiddling with a century-old book carousel, but simply responds

“And Crowley? Is he not the same?” Aziraphale purses his lips in a sad little smile.

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Sherlock, dear, I appreciate your curiosity, but this wasn’t exactly part of our agreement,” he says after a moment, trying to push down the bite threatening to bubble out of his voice.

“Right, yes. No John to tether me,” he says, unrestrictive of his bitterness. Then, after a moment, tentatively asks, “If you don’t mind me asking, as I understand I’m being intrusive… but how does it feel? With him?”

“Well. I-” he bites his lip, hands clasped together resignedly. “It feels divine,” he says, somber.

“Thank you. I’m sorry to have taken up your time, but I think I should be getting Rosie home before she breaks something valuable.” He smiles, only half faking this time, and swings her up by her underarms, murmuring “let’s go on an adventure, my dear Watson” in her ear and eliciting a giggle.

They walk home with her perched on his shoulders, giggling all the way. 

“Where are we, Papa?” she asks him.

“A colony on Mars. The sky is only a hologram; don’t let it fool you.”

When he pauses to pick up a call from John, who worriedly enquires about their whereabouts, Sherlock shrugs his coat off and wraps it around Rosie so that his head is smothered in the thick fabric, and to passersby it appears that a seven-foot man with a child’s head is standing around, giggling. Where it’s safe, Sherlock lets Rosie direct him, walking blindly for a few minutes that have her cackling, and when she sulks in response to being lifted off his shoulders and placed on the ground, they pretend they’re chasing a criminal and run home down the road. Sherlock kneels with his ear to the front door and his hands clasped together with his first and second fingers free, a loaded finger pistol. He extracts one hand to make a complicated charade to Rosie about their plan, and then knocks on the door and calls “open up!” When John swings the door inward, Sherlock rises quickly and points the finger gun menacingly at his forehead. Without faltering, John immediately assumes a guilty face and throws his hands up. “Officer, arrest this man,” he calmly tells Rosie.

“You have the right t’remain silent!” she says, jumping gleefully up to grab John’s raised hands. “Ev’rything you say can ‘nd will be held agains’choo!” she tells him strictly, tying his hands together with a violet scrunchie and pushing him into the room, heaving her entire body against his leg. He collapses face-first on the couch and rolls over, chuckling, his face folded into a tired smile. He breaks free of his handcuffs to ruffle her hair, asking “did you have fun?” She nods idly, walking off abruptly, humming a song. This leaves the two alone, avoiding each others’ eyes. “Where’d you go?” asks John quietly.

“Aziraphale’s library,” he says enigmatically, picking up his violin.

“Really?” John says dumbfoundedly. “I thought you found him insufferable?” 

“Oh, I do.”

“So?” he prompts, and when met with silence, pries “what did you talk about?” A silent Sherlock plays Irene’s theme mysteriously. John is bewildered.

“Did you talk about… the woman?”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” snaps the sleuth. John has to admit that it’s refreshing not hearing ‘stupid’ since Rosie’s arrival forbade swearing of all sorts, but the vitriol is all in his tone anyway. “We talked about books,” he says, accentuating each syllable in unison with a staccato plucking of notes. 

“ _ Al _ right,” says John, slightly miffed, his raised eyebrows spelling out ‘calm down’. He refrains from prying about which books in particular as a rabbit chooses to avoid a hungry fox, but can’t deny that curiosity is clawing at him rather desperately in response to Sherlock’s uncharacteristic silence. Though, perhaps ‘silence’ isn’t the best term for the tune - if you can even call it that - he’s scratching out on the violin. Knowing a dismissal when he sees one, John retreats upstairs after Rosie. He finds her kneeling on the floor in her pajamas, even though it’s still light outside, holding what looks like a wedding for her fish and bluebird plush toys. They’re wrapped in her white socks with the rest of her toys arranged in aisles, watching them wed under a tentatively balancing arch made out of blocks. Unfortunately, John happens to walk in as the fish and the bird’s faces are mashed together in quite a passionate kiss, and an embarrassed Rosie drops them both rather suddenly, sending the structure toppling to the ground. She watches the collapsed pile of bricks with the saddest expression, her mouth agape and drooping downwards.

“I object!” says John, swooping in to save Rosie from bursting into tears. Her face contorts into a laugh, holding up her fish, who tells John “you’re my true love!” He takes the fish from her outstretched little hand and hugs it to his chest fondly. She gasps, struck by inspiration:

“Let’s have a wedding!” she says excitedly. John allows himself to be dragged across to her wardrobe, where she pulls out a little white dress small enough to fit snugly on his right thigh, and commands him to “put it on!” When he tries to object, explaining that it won’t fit, she settles for taping it to his shirt by the shoulders. She puts her tiara on his head, and then, deciding it insufficient, scrambles downstairs to slaughter some daisies in the garden. She hops on Sherlock’s lap, ducking under his violin, and shoves the flowers impatiently in his face.

“Can you make me a flower crown please please please?” she pleads. He huffs a sigh and places the violin carefully down on the cushion beside him. 

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” he says sarcastically, plucking the flowers from her fist. His long fingers dexterously braid the flowers into one another until a crown is formed, large enough to encircle her little head, which she shakes emphatically.

“It’s for daddy, not for me!” she says, and, grinning mischievously, the man makes it to measure and delivers it in the flesh. 

John has his back turned when he enters, staring out of the window. He doesn’t hear Sherlock approach or notice him looming behind him and carefully placing the crown over his golden hair until he’s slid it over his forehead. He turns with a flushed smile and a breathy, startled laugh, and Sherlock grins back, committing every detail to memory by snapping a photo with his phone. John lunges for it and Sherlock holds his long arm out behind him, batting his hands away with the other, pressing them flush against one another’s chests as they wrestle for the phone. Eventually, John lands a blow on a pressure point in Sherlock’s neck and he slumps forward onto him, landing them in a painfully bony pile of limbs on the floor. When John picks up the phone, it’s locked.

“Unlock it,” he says, pinning him to the floor. Sherlock cackles. He hopes John can’t feel his heart racing. “Delete it!”

“Delete it? I’m going to frame it,” he says, his face a painting of glorious, unabashed mischief. John tries to glare, scrunching up his face as Sherlock’s contagious smile overtakes him, until he breaks and bursts out laughing. For a second, Sherlock just watches him, face only a few inches away, vein on his pink forehead bulging, bright laugh and blinding smile, wishing he wasn’t paralysed in every way and could close that gap and breathe in his laughter. Then John releases his wrists and tumbles off him onto the floor beside him, chest heaving with laughter. His elbow sticks out where his hands are clutching his stomach and leans lightly into Sherlock’s exposed rib where his arms are still laid out above his head. His wrists are still on fire. So is his entire chest cavity, worryingly. He wonders idly if he’s having a heart attack, or if this is just the old forgotten taste of an escaped emotion bubbling up. He can feel the walls of his mind-palace straining to confine it.  _ Aziraphale  _ did  _ say he’s head over heels for you. Maybe he  _ wants  _ you to roll over and pin him to the floor _ , says the fool in his head. He settles for a twist of the neck, his cheek lolling onto the floorboard and his eyes finding a very red ear in a sea of dirty blond hair interrupted by a daisy chain.  _ You could lick that ear from here _ , says the fool.  _ Shut up _ , he tells it. From his peripheral vision, he can see the folds of skin around John’s mouth settle slowly down. His head turns to face Sherlock’s, face pressing into the adjoining floorboard, and then they are breathing the same air, the smile still lingering in the blue of John’s eyes as Sherlock catalogues every fleck he can count in his iris at this proximity instead of kissing him or kissing him or kissing him breathless and flushed and ruined.

It is at this point that Rosie decides to barge in and scrambles in between the two of them for a very silent, very awkward group hug. John hides a smile in her hair and sits up, dragging her up with him. A half-paralysed Sherlock follows, wriggling upright with his hair sticking up slightly on one side. 

“Oh look, pa’s a’ready dressed f’the wedding!” she says, pulling at his hand with her whole body weight. He hurls himself upright, wobbling dangerously on his feet. Since his genius seems to be functioning substantially slower than its regular breakneck pace, worse than an excessive dose of morphine, he has only just pieced together a deduction of the comically tiny dress taped to his shoulders and the flower crown, as well as the implications of what Rosie has just said. 

He’s about to get married to John Watson.

“I thought I was getting married to fishy?” says John, steadying a swaying Sherlock with a hand.

“Mm, no.”

“But fishy’s my true love,” says John, his voice failing to hide desperation.  _ Am I so repulsive? _ Sherlock asks himself. Rosie thinks his words over and then hurries over to her toy chest, pulling out a long ribbon which she uses to tie the fish to the top of Sherlock’s hair, standing atop her bed.

“I’ll be the priest!” she declares, breaking out into wedding music and dragging John across the room so she can walk him across the floor to face Sherlock with a bashfully amused smile. “Do you, John…” she trails off.

“Hamish,” supplies Sherlock. 

“Hamish Watson, take Sherlock-”

“William Sherlock Scott Holmes,” John interjects, jutting his chin out proudly at Sherlock.

“Technically, I’m fishy,” he murmurs, failing to hide a smirk.

“William Sherlock…” she trails off again, giving up with a huffed “Holmes, take this man t’be your husband, in…” she ponders momentarily, then remembers with a gasp. “Sickness and in health!”

“I do,” says John, so stilted it feels like somebody’s doing a laparotomy on Sherlock while he’s got anesthesia awareness. That is to say, it’s like somebody’s carving a massive incision right through him.

“Wait, rings!” Rosie runs back to the chest, but after a moment of rummaging, Sherlock calls her back, handing her the daisy he’s folded up. She makes a little ‘whoa’ sound at it, and then hands it to John who stares at it, stony faced. Sherlock wonders if this is reminding him of Mary. This train of thought abruptly ends as John takes his hand, his warm fingers covering his own, sliding the flower over his fingers, and the sleuth is overwhelmed with the sudden urge to double over and vomit because this scrape is far too close to a very thin wall of barely-contained fantasies about situations that resemble this one far too much.

“And you, William Sherlock… Scott Holmes,” she says, beaming. Sherlock beams back. “Take this man- woman, I mean, t’be your awfully wedding wife?”

“I do take this man woman to be my awfully wedding wife,” he says, smiling across at John. John smiles a grimace, looking down. Sherlock takes him by the hand, not missing the way his breath stutters and the speed of his pulse in his fingertips increases as he slides the daisy over one knuckle, two knuckles and does not cry at how much it burns that he has now tasted this and can never know the bliss of ignorance. No, now he will be forever tormented by the knowledge of what precisely he is missing. John’s fingers slip out of his grasp.

“I pronounce you man and man woman!” Rosie declares. “You may kiss the bride,” she says, and then stands there watching them expectantly.  _ She’s just like her mother _ , thinks Sherlock, leaning in to brush the ghost of a kiss onto John’s stubble and not crying.

“Can you  _ really  _ get married now?” she says, and John lets out a dumbfounded splutter.

“Me and your daddy aren’t going to get married, my dear Watson,” says Sherlock softly, doing his best to mask the thickness of his voice.

“Why not?” she says indignantly.

“Because, darling, friends don’t love each other in that way,” says John. Sherlock feels like the remnants of a sea stack crumbling into a stump; limestone unraveling into the ocean. Calcium carbonate. “Friends don’t get married.” John picks her up and swings her onto his hip, thankfully turning away from Sherlock’s falling face and walking slowly out of the room, uttering explanations.

When he’s alone and they’re out of earshot, he’s surprised to find that his eyes are very wet and he doesn’t know how to stop it. There’s a crushing feeling in his chest like his lungs have been stitched into each other. It feels like he’s been shot by Mary again. It feels like he’s dying. His mind-palace has fogged up entirely and allows for no thought at all. Only a seething pain. He topples sideways, bending double, his breathing coming unevenly and erratically. With one hand on the doorframe, his knees go shuddering out from under him, landing on the floor, leaning his back against the wall. He steadies his hand over his chest, checking that some gaping wound hasn’t actually opened up, his hand stuttering up and down with ever-increasingly ragged breaths as an onslaught of hot tears he can hardly locate the source of make their way down his cheeks and neck, soaking into the collar of his shirt.

He wonders if he should call an ambulance for a moment, but when he looks down at his unlocked phone screen the image of John in the flower crown beams up at him. The pain slowly dissipates into something more tolerably numb, and when his mind is free from the interference of emotion, he finds some very contradictory evidence to John’s prior statement that “friends don’t love each other in that way.” No, John, friends don’t have dilated pupils and flushed cheeks and necks and blinding smiles for each other. So what category does that place Sherlock in?

Aziraphale startles at the keyhole when he realises he’s being watched. He spots Crowley by a flash of his eyes in the corner of the dark - and how did it even  _ get  _ dark? He must’ve dramatically drawn the curtains, or, better yet, miracled it - kitchen, where he sits ominously on the bench, feigning nonchalance as he idly picks at his nails.

“Oh! Crowley, what are you doing here?” he says breathlessly, failing to hide a scarlet flush.

“I live here!” He drops his facade for an annoyed scowl. 

“Right. Yes.” Aziraphale lingers at the door for another second and then hurries into the lounge, out of the demon’s line of view. He cranes his neck, perplexed, trying to see after the flustered angel.

“You alright?” he calls, sliding off the countertop.

“Just tickety-boo!” comes the answer from the other room.

“Tell me you don’t have another world-changing prophetic book, angel.” He slinks on after him and leans against the doorframe with his wiry arms folded over his chest. He finds Aziraphale to simply be standing in the middle of the room, restlessly fidgeting with his hands, and then suddenly whipping around to face the demon and asking him out for coffee, which he perplexedly and belatedly accepts.

“Bit late for coffee, though, isn’t it?” he says as they walk to the cafe. He wraps a second scarf around his bony neck in the evening cold and Aziraphale silently threatens the air into becoming noticeably warmer. The demon flashes him a sideways glance through his sunglasses, a half-smile worrying his lip. 

“We don’t have to keep the caffeine. And you might sleep, but I don’t see the need.” Crowley humphs a response. “You should sleep more. ‘S fun.”

“I think you and I have rather different definitions of ‘fun,’” he scoffs.

“Well what’s your definition of ‘fun,’ then?”

“Oh, you know. A good book, a platter of sushi, or oysters, or cheese, or brioche. A cup of tea.” His face is a proud, pleased sort of pout.

“Angel, remind me to find you some better hobbies,” says Crowley, exasperatedly, after a moment. 

“Well excuse you! I did enjoy magic before you hid my kit.” His brows pinch barely together. “Oh! Also, crepes,” he adds, after a moment.

“Yes, angel, I know about the crepes,” says Crowley wryly. Aziraphale giggles a little. “You should try making them one day, you know. The internet’s full of, mmph, tutorials and stuff.”

“I’ll be sure to try it. Can’t afford weekly flights to France anymore on my librarian’s pay,” he says solemnly. The demon hides a laugh at his unangelic self-indulgence. Gluttony looks good on him, he decides as they reach the cafe and take their seats.

As they sit in pleasant silence, save for the hum of the sparse passing car and the breeze rustling the trees that pave the road, Aziraphale works up the courage to speak.

“Crowley?” he says softly.

“Yes, angel?” says the demon, his voice curious and eyes wide behind his sunglasses, eyebrows gently raised as if prompting him.

“I was just thinking… well, what if there was-” his voice catches in his throat. Crowley’s eyebrows say ‘ _ well? _ ’ “If there was to be… say, another Armageddon,” he says hesitantly, carefully balancing the words on his tongue. Crowley’s eyebrows are frowning now. 

“I won’t let that happen,” he says, resolved. 

“Right, yes, I know. It’s just…” he trails off, huffing. “When the world was ending, we were rushing all the time, and I never got to really…” He pouts with a frown, but continues after a second. “To thank you, I suppose. For all the… times we helped each other out,” he says, a little smile toying at his lips while his eyebrows pull furtively together. Crowley’s face softens immediately.

“My pleasure, angel,” he says quietly, taken aback by the sudden vulnerability in the air.

“I just… ever since we almost failed I-” he makes a little croak. “I wanted you to know that if the world ever ended for good, well, that I would miss you very much.” He sits upright in silence, nervously meeting the demon’s eyes after a second. If the angel could see his eyes he might notice that he seemed on the verge of tears.

“Thanks angel,” he says finally, the pitch of his voice noticeably higher. “Means a lot to me. I’d miss you too,” he adds, and a long breath goes out of Aziraphale, his body loosening out. He’s suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to take his hand, but pushes it into the furthest recesses of his spacious stomach.

The tension blows away with the evening chill, and soon they return to the calmness of plain old familiar conversation, winding along with them as they pay, leave a handsome tip and return home as the sun descends.

John gets an early night, exhausted, but soon wakes with a start. He’s heard a voice.

“Who do you work for?” says a distant voice - Sherlock’s, his mind supplies, after a drowsy lag. A moment later, he dashes out of bed in a panic, his brain and body instantly switching on with a rush of terrified adrenaline.  _ Oh God, Rosie,  _ he thinks.  _ What if something’s happened-  _ he shoves the thought aside and follows Sherlock’s voice, filling with dread as he realises it’s coming from Rosie’s room. He slows down, muffling his footsteps so he can at least have the advantage of surprise. Other than that, he’s only got his gun and his pajama bottoms. He waits outside the door, panting quietly, ready to kick it open, but he doesn’t hear the pursuer’s voices. “Tell me the names of your employer and I will let you go. Don’t make me hurt you.”  _ She’s being traumatised by the second. No time to waste,  _ he thinks, and kicks down the door, gun held out in front of him.   
Sherlock and Rosie look up at him, surprised. He’s sitting over her, hands poised and ready to go in for a tickle, not a criminal in sight. John’s eyes dart around a moment before he realises with a shuddering breath. He laughs a sigh of stupid relief, running his hands over his face.

“Bloody  _ hell,  _ Sherlock, I-”

“Language!” him and Rosie say in unison. 

“Sorry, right, sorry.” he exhales shakily. “I thought you- God, you’re getting way too good at impressions. Let me just-” he gestures vaguely to the gun in hand, noticing the daisy ring still encircling his finger, half of it pressed and mangled where it was tucked under his pillow. He goes back to his room and tucks the gun back into his drawer with another sigh. He jumps at the sound of a shriek, followed by Rosie’s unmistakable bubbly laugh.  _ What has gotten into me? _

“John,” Sherlock calls when he finally re-enters, his chest no longer bare. “Help me arrest this dangerous criminal.” Rosie is pinned under his arms, squirming and grinning.

“You’ll never take me alive!” John grins and grabs her toy snake from off the floor. He ties her body together with it, and then takes her favourite stuffed bird from the bed and holds it in a headlock.

“Tell me who sent you here, or the bird gets it,” he says, in the meanest voice he can muster. Sherlock looks delighted. She shakes her head, lips pursed together comically.

“Rosamund Sherlock Watson, you better tell us, or we’ll take it out of you!” the sleuth snarls. She squeals a “No!” and Sherlock tickles her until she’s a giggling, jumping mess. She wriggles out of her snake bindings and darts across the room, but not fast enough to escape John’s hands, which snatch her and chuck her over his shoulder with a delighted scream. 

“Gotcha!” He flings her onto the bed, where she lands, with a bounce that spreads her curls out around her face and a delicious chuckle, followed closely by a yawn. “For the last time, her middle name is not Sherlock,” he adds, a smirk playing at his lips.

“No, but her first name should’ve been,” he responds, a small smile turning up the sides of his mouth. “It’s not too late to change it, you know,” he adds, just for the laugh it gets out of John.

“Can you tell me a bedtime story?” she asks, before John can playfully shush him, adding a “Please?” a second later.

“Alright,” Sherlock says, sliding into the bed beside her. John joins them on the other side, meeting Sherlock’s eyes over the top of her head. 

“Your mother was a spy,” he says simply, still locking eyes with Sherlock, who shoots him a look of surprise. It’s close enough to the truth for a three year old’s ears. He shoots a look back that says  _ we can’t protect her forever.  _ This is their language, these meaningful looks and glances.

Rosie looks delighted. “That’s cool!”

“Yes,” Sherlock laughs, “She was just like Severine from your James Bond movies.”

“Who’s James Bond?” she asks. Sherlock pauses, horrified.

“Have we never shown her a Bond movie?” he says, looking up at John.

“We’ve failed as parents,” says John, his face no longer sombre at the topic of Mary. They both snort. Sherlock’s heart doesn’t light up the way that it used to upon hearing the word  _ parents _ , but the embers still glow.  _ Parents  _ are usually married, he thinks.  _ Parents _ implies two halves of a whole. So what category does that place Sherlock in?  _ Mutual parent? Caretaker?  _ Or  _ spouse? Husband?  _

“James Bond is a  _ very  _ cool spy who saves a lot of lives, Watson,” says Sherlock, combing through her curls dexterously.

“Like you and daddy?” He nods, smiling.

“Did mummy save lives?” she asks, and Sherlock feels the world slow to a halt. He pointedly does not meet John’s gaze.

“She saved my life,” he says quietly. Rosie hugs his arm at the idea of him being in mortal peril.

“‘m glad,” she mumbles into his shirt collar. He kisses her forehead.

“Me too,” says John, and Sherlock finally meets his eyes. He looks earnest. Sherlock furrows his eyebrows, shooting him a smile that is flattered, relieved and melancholic all at once. John breaks their long, mutual look at last, leaning down to plant another kiss on Rosie’s forehead, right over Sherlock’s.

“Daddy?” she says sleepily, rolling over.

“Yes, darling?”

“What’s ‘head on heels’ mean?” she says nonchalantly. Sherlock blanches.

“‘Head over heels’, you mean? It means in love,” he says, stroking her hair.

“r’you head over heels for pa?” she murmurs, and John’s breath hitches. He laughs airily.

“No, but I love the two of you very much,” he says with a smile, very deliberately avoiding Sherlock’s eyes.

“Goodnight, love.” He squeezes her (and Sherlock’s wedged arm) against his chest for a moment, and then rolls out of bed. Sherlock follows a moment later.

“Shall I call a repairman to fix this?” he says, closing the door as best as he can on the broken hinges.

“Nah it’s alright, I’ll do it,” he says dismissively, watching his own feet with an expression of frustration twisting his mouth downwards.

“You weren’t at fault, John,” says Sherlock gently. 

“I kicked the door down and pointed a gun at you two because you were playing pretend!”

“Your reaction to the situation was appropriate, from the context you were given. Had we been in danger-”

“You weren’t in danger, Sherlock. It was stupid.” Sherlock pauses.

“It was a little bit stupid,” he says, after a moment, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Another second passes, and John lets out a little laugh. Before they know it, they’re both giggling in the corridor. 

“This is a  _ crime scene  _ John, we can’t  _ giggle _ ,” he says, and they both laugh even harder, John bracing himself on the broken door frame, bent double. He falls forward against the other man’s chest, and Sherlock catches him firmly, two steadying hands gripping his biceps. His laugh sobers, but he spares him a smile, hands lingering. “Goodnight, John,” he says softly, with a small squeeze to his bicep.

“Night,” John replies, unspoken words on his tongue that he can’t quite formulate.

They formulate once John is on the verge of sleep.  _ Love you _ , he’d almost said.  _ Maybe I am head over heels for you _ . He ponders what Sherlock’s reaction would be.  _ I consider myself married to my work _ , maybe.  _ Love you too _ , maybe. A man can dream.

A man in the other room is not dreaming. He is wide awake, thinking over their previous conversation. The knowledge that Sherlock possesses is that John purses his lips almost imperceptibly before lying. The knowledge that Sherlock does not possess is whether or not John had pursed his lips before saying “no” in response to Rosie’s question of whether or not he loved Sherlock, this being because his lips were hidden behind her bush of hair. He cannot therefore conclude that John is not in fact in love with him, although it is the most likely, if not the only possible conclusion. Experimenting can prove his hypothesis.

He turns over the results of his experiment with the knife again. John hadn’t seemed at all aroused, just confused. Too out of character, then. He will have to do something more simple, more orthodox. Of course, there is always the option that John is not, in fact, attracted to him, but this contradicts the lightbulb incident. But the fact that he thinks Sherlock should start dating supports it; would he not be jealous? Or maybe he's selflessly concerned about Sherlock's social life in his adoration. The former is much more likely, he decides. He tries to put less faith in his hypothesis; hope only leads to pain and disappointment. 

This doesn’t stop him from whipping out his phone and flicking back to the image from earlier. John’s face is flushed in a way that makes him glow, and his pupils are dilated a little, hidden behind the stray tufts of hair cascading over the flower crown. But the pupils  _ are  _ dilated, and he had been looking out of a window before, standing still, so there is no plausible reason that he would’ve had that response to any stimuli other than Sherlock. He tries to stuff in the hope that’s spilling out of him, to contain it like you might do a virus - and that’s all love is, a sickness - but it bubbles out of every lid he tries to clamp down on it. Panicked, he does his best to spout depressive thoughts and snuff the hope out before it can devour him.

Then he makes the mistake of returning to the question of whether he loves John. He recounts John’s explanation of love and finds himself mentally ticking off every item on the list, which is highly disconcerting and leads him to further question himself rather than face what Sherlock finds to be a horrifying truth. His ability to restrain himself against insulting John - no, rather, a lack of  _ needing  _ to insult John, who mostly manages to be a tolerable level of intelligence most of the time, even proving himself highly stimulating at crime scenes. His excessive concern for the man’s safety and well-being - the insurpassable terror when he was dragging his body out from under the bonfire, ripping off the explosives beneath his clothes, pointing a gun at his brother’s heart, at his own brain, anywhere but at John. The way that everyone else seemed to think they were in love, even Moriarty.  _ I will burn the heart out of you _ . 

And obviously the crushing, intoxicating hope that John could return this inexplicable feeling that he refuses to acknowledge, that nags at his brain when he’s trying to concentrate and seems to be the only alternative to cocaine that is capable of pulling the rapid, inexorable whirl of his excessive thoughts to a halt.

If he doesn’t let the thought materialise, it isn’t real, he tells himself. But it takes shape all the same: he loves John Watson. It’s a futile, reckless bit of sentiment that will lead him to his death, he knows, but he’s been long gone for a long time, and he wouldn’t want it any other way. Thus ends Sherlock Holmes.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Woohoo for melodramatic ending!   
> There should be one or two more chapters to this. I've actually already written the whole fic, but I'm breaking it into chapters so that it's easier for me to go over and rewrite. Hope you liked it so far and all constructive criticism is welcomed :)  
> Also, if I may say, that wedding scene is my favourite thing that I have EVER written, and that is saying a lot considering my 47-something other unfinished fics which we don't talk about :)


End file.
